At 14, Jérémy Gabriel tried to hang himself.
He wanted to die because a comedian made the crowds laugh by calling him “not beautiful who sings”. On stage, Mike Ward said he tried to drown him, in vain; the disabled teenager was “not killable”.
Jérémy Gabriel wanted to die because video clips of the show Mike Ward s’eXpose circulated at his school. He was constantly intimidated. The capsules were sent to him by Messenger. We made fun of him, his physique, his handicap. It had become unlivable.
So little Jérémy passed the noose around his neck.
It was in this context that his desperate mother filed a discrimination complaint against Mike Ward with the Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission.
It is important, the context. It has often been said that Mike Ward’s jokes were “taken out of context”. That you had to understand his type of humor, very dark.
The Supreme Court agrees. “Placed in their context, his words can not be taken at first degree,” ruled the highest court in the country, in a decision divided by five judges against four.
Mike Ward won. And freedom of expression with it. Very good. The majority judges believed that the comedian had made fun of Jérémy Gabriel because of his notoriety and not his handicap. They put his jokes in context. Perfect.
But in all this, we should not forget, either, the intolerable context of Jérémy Gabriel.
***
An hour after the announcement of the judgment, the young man appeared before the media. Worthy, but shaken by defeat. He briefly mentioned the ordeal of his teenage years and his suicide attempt.
But above all he tried to explain himself once and for all. He never intended to put humor or freedom of expression on trial. Whatever his detractors say, he never wanted to play the victim, let alone make a big splash.
If Jérémy Gabriel led this legal battle, it is to repair what had been broken in him. To regain his dignity.
And now, after 10 years, the Supreme Court tells him that he has not used the right vehicle to do so …
***
The Human Rights Tribunal did not have jurisdiction to judge Jérémy Gabriel’s complaint, ruled the five majority judges of the Supreme Court.
They said Mike Ward’s jokes did not amount to discrimination. “The contentious words exploit, rightly or wrongly, a discomfort in order to entertain, but they do little more than that”, we read in the judgment.
And, above all: “The recourse in discrimination is not, and should not become, a recourse in defamation. (Emphasis in the judgment.)
In other words, Jérémy Gabriel and his mother should have gone to a traditional court to seek redress from the comedian. They did not have to use the pretext of discrimination in a case that amounted to defamation.
“We thought that going through an institution that defends the rights of marginalized people was the best way,” defended the young man, who suffers from severe deafness and head deformities. “We did with what we knew about the legal system. ”
We cannot blame them: what we knew about the system was that the Human Rights Tribunal had for years broadened its jurisdiction through generous interpretations of rights and freedoms.
The Supreme Court has just put an end to this expansion.
***
The majority are of the opinion that a “reasonable person” would not consider that Mike Ward’s jokes could make people “despise” Jeremy Gabriel or “hate his humanity”.
It leaves a bunch of unreasonable people to despise him and to hate his humanity, for 10 years, on social networks …
These hateful trolls don’t care about the context. They are unable to take it to the next level. The second degree, they do not know.
Mike Ward uses black humor. Corrosive. He pushes the limits. It is his trademark. A reasonable person understands this.
But the comedian himself has already admitted that half of his audience doesn’t like him for the right reasons. He takes it straight up – and he asks for more. Mike Ward said he found it “heavy”.
For Jérémy Gabriel, it is overwhelming.
***
Schoolyard bullying has moved to social media. The bullies are now adults. They never gave up. They call Jérémy Gabriel a little rat, a garbage, a chihuahua with Down’s syndrome. They advise him to kill himself.
“Every insult, every joke and every threat of death will have been one more reason for me to continue this fight,” he said on Friday. To all my detractors, you are all my strength, you are all that I am. ”
He wished Mike Ward would apologize, or at least acknowledge his distress. “The goal was to have a repair. It never existed, and I don’t think it will ever exist. ”